First things first: Xu Shi's sudden decision to stay behind and look after the unconscious Shen Qin was not because of that "but."
The real reason was another sentence.
If I wanted to humiliate you, would I need an excuse?
Miss Shen Qin already looked frail and sickly to begin with. Now that she was injured, she looked even more pitiable. How could he not take the chance to bully her properly? Better sooner than later.
But he had not expected her to suddenly grab him so groggily, then slowly nuzzle her way onto his lap.
"B-Brother, I'm so scared..."
The inhibitor Xie Qingyan had injected into her gave her a slight fever, and she started mumbling uncontrollably. "Mom and Dad are gone, and you're gone too. I can't find you no matter what I do. They all bully me. It's so dark..."
"Xiao Qin will behave. Brother, please stop hiding from me. Can you come out?"
As she spoke, little pearls of tears rolled from the corners of her eyes like a snapped string, making her look even more wronged, pitiful, and helpless.
"..."
Xu Shi said nothing.
She was having a nightmare... It looked like she had remembered the days when Tianhe fell, when she and Shen He had been displaced together, only for her to lose him and become separated from him?
Judging from her sleep-talking, that was probably it. But regardless of what she had dreamed, this was the first time he had seen such an expression on Miss Shen Qin's face.
Come to think of it, perhaps because they were enemies, Xu Shi had rarely even seen her smile since the day they first met. Most of the time, she wore a poker face, or flew into a rage after being humiliated by him.
After